'The X-Files' Episode 3 was a silly hour of TV that couldn't have been better

From its tongue-in-cheek title — “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” — to its final credits, Monday night's episode of The X-Files was so packed to the scales with lighthearted fun, it was almost enough to fully erase the taste of the disastrous premiere from our collective mouths.

At its best, the original The X-Files would switch genres on a dime, going from dark and creepy to crazy and funny. Where last week’s episode went straight horror, this week's dove into existential, absurdist comedy.

Time and the technology it has wrought hasn’t been particularly kind to Fox Mulder. All the monsters, ghosts and ghouls he spent nearly ten years chasing are quickly being explained by, ugh, logic and facts, all available on the Web. As Scully smartly intones, “Mulder, the Internet is not good for you.”

“Since we’ve been away, much of the unexplained has been explained,” Mulder says. The Death Valley racetrack turned out to be ice formations. A rock-like creature terrorizing Colorado? Just a PR stunt. Half of his old cases were just fraternity pranks.

All that’s left for him to do is sit in a drab office and expertly throw pencils at his “I Want to Believe Poster,” wondering if his life’s work has been a childish waste of time. (Side note: Never challenge Fox Mulder to a game of darts.)

We’ve all been there before: down in the dumps, questioning every decision we’ve made, wondering if it’s all been a waste. And there’s always a moment that can pull us out of the mental gutter. Maybe reconnecting with an old friend or pulling off an important project at work.

For Mulder, it comes in the form of a lizard-man that hibernates for 10,000 years and has recently begun transforming into a Hamlet-quoting New Zealander with terrific taste in hats and a nihilistic view on humanity.

The duo is called to Oregon after a paint-huffing couple sees a creature in the woods that reportedly has been killing people. “We’ve been given another case, Mulder,” Scully says, almost winking at the camera. “It has a monster in it.”

All the victims have the same marks on their necks. Local animal control officer Pasha (hilariously played by Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani) survived an attack but claims not to have seen anything. Much like Mulder, he’s wondering if his job is worth it as he walks around with his control pole, searching for lost puppies, terrified that a monster will bite his head off at any moment.

This stuff sounds dark, but it’s played for laughs. The episode is packed with wacky, absurd situations and characters, such as a physiatrist who pops anti-psychotics like candy and considers a brisk walk in a cemetery to be sound therapy. Or the local motel owner who chugs rubbing alcohol from a bottle and has set up his very own creep-tastic peep show. (I think we’ll all check the eyeholes of random animal heads in our hotel rooms from here on out.)

Then there’s Guy Man, the New Zealander (Rhys Darby, better known as Murray from Flight of the Conchords) who the duo first encounter in a Porta-Potty. They see the monster run in, but when they fling the door open, a well-dressed man in a straw hat is just, err, taking care of business.

Neither agent sees the horns retracting into his fleshy neck.

The episode is packed with jokes and sly references to the modern world, from Mulder wondering why no one has taken a picture of the monster — “Everyone has a camera on them these days.” — to him trying to explain what it means to be transgender to a ancient lizard creature.

I think all of us could have spent the entire episode watching Mulder try to figure out how to use a smartphone.

But it’s also full of subtle self-mockery, like the running joke about how the creature will only have two eyes. Guy Man, the monster himself, balks when he sees the police sketch that added a third eye smack-dab in the middle of his face.

Even the episode’s conclusion is off the walls.

Image: Ed Araquel/FOX

Eventually, Mulder finds Guy Man taking some therapeutic advice in a cemetery. Mulder, again wanting to believe, excitedly listens to Guy’s story, waiting at every turn for the man to be a were-lizard on a murder spree. Instead, Guy waxes philosophical on the difficulties of being human — from life being nothing but loss to the pains of going to a job he hates just to return home and unwind with double-cheeseburgers and hours of Pay-Per-View porn.

He explains that he was bitten, but not by any sort of monster. Instead, he was a peaceful creature — an insectivore — who was bitten by a human, and now he’s turning into one.

He couldn’t be more miserable.

Pasha turns out to be the killer, using his control stick to strangle people before taking a few nice bites out of them. He’s even got a speech prepared, though Scully tells him to save it for the court.

But Mulder isn’t completely lost. He pays Guy one final visit in the woods, still convinced he’s not a monster, just a psychotic. But, after Guy explains that he’s going into hibernation for 10,000 years, Mulder watches scales and horns sprout from his skin.

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